A few days ago, Erika North, the international original director of Netflix, announced that the first batch of Chinese drama series launched by Netflix will be launched one after another.
Among them, "Sin Dreamer" starring Zhang Xiaoquan and Jia Jingwen is the first to go online and will be broadcast on October 31; the first batch of three Netflix Chinese-language self-produced dramas to be launched, including "The Great Daughter" which will be broadcast on December 6. , And "Marriage of the Other Shore", which will be broadcast in January 2020. After the series is officially launched, it can be watched simultaneously in 190 countries (regions) around the world.
After HBO launched "Psychic Girl", "The Distance Between Us and Evil", and FOX launched "Oriental Wall Street" and "Heart Injustice" and other Chinese dramas, Netflix, which has always been interested in oriental elements, also began to speak Chinese.
According to online data, Netflix, HBO, and FOX have shown steady growth in performance in recent years, but user growth has all fallen into a bottleneck. In this case, these overseas platforms have begun to vigorously expand the global market, and the huge number of people in the Chinese-speaking region naturally attracts "giants". Judging from the current actions, has launched a Chinese-language drama series. Seen as the new growth pole in the number of users.
1 Netflix stumbling along the way
Netflix has always been interested in the Chinese market and Eastern elements. The tentative first step of
Netflix is that announced a copyright cooperation with iQiyi, one of the top three domestic video sites, and released some original content on the iQiyi platform . In this regard, Netflix founder, president and chairman of the board of directors Reed Hastings said: "The three big guys in the Chinese video industry are too powerful. We now prefer to sell the copyright to a Chinese company instead of directly entering the Chinese market."
In May of this year, Netflix and iQiyi had terminated their cooperation. According to Gong Yu, the CEO of iQiyi, the reason for stopping the cooperation was "the effect of the cooperation between the two parties is not very good, so we will not continue to cooperate."
Although it is a stumbling block to enter the Chinese market, it does not hinder Netflix's favor of Chinese elements . For example, in this year’s popular animation "Love, Death and Robots", Chinese traditional mythological elements and Chinese street scenes have appeared many times; the film "Wandering Earth" was released on its platform and actively cooperated with Chinese streaming media companies to buy The exclusive overseas distribution rights of Youku's 24-episode idol drama "The Most Beautiful Thing".
Now, like HBO, Netflix has started to produce Chinese drama series for audiences in the Chinese-speaking regions with Taiwanese drama as the starting point. Judging from the three series that have been finalized, each has its own points: "Sin Dreamer" confronts the characteristics of human nature and discusses some phenomena and issues that exist in the real society; "Extreme Girl" combines Netflix's production experience with Taiwanese dramas He is good at a combination of romance and plot; "Marriage on the Other Shore" includes some Eastern customs and characteristics, and blends the suspenseful colors of reasoning.
"Extreme Daughter"
Of course, how the drama is integrated and whether Netflix can smoothly "please" Chinese audiences will have to wait until these episodes are launched before doing observations.
2 HBO's splendor in content
"Sin Dreamer" became the "first shot" of Netflix's Chinese drama series. According to the introduction, the show is starred by Jia Jingwen and taken from real social cases as the story element. Its theme is to discuss the issue of death penalty. And some phenomena and contradictions in Asian society. The same starring role and similar issues of
are inevitably reminiscent of this year's hot Taiwan drama "The Distance Between Us and Evil". This series of
tells how the victim's family, perpetrator's family, defender and potential suspect face changes in external life and personal psychological conditions after an "indiscriminate homicide" that occurred in the theater. This narrative theme is obviously different from the Chinese dramas in the audience's impression. It takes the audience into different roles from an omniscient perspective, and walks into the inner world of the characters in different positions and environments. Although the ending of
is inevitably a bit too "utopian", "The Distance Between Us and Evil" still really shows a certainPopularity and aroused widespread discussion among netizens. On the Douban platform, the score of the show even reached 9.5. Behind this show is HBO, which is well known to many fans.
In fact, before "The Distance Between Us and Evil", HBO had already created a Chinese drama series. In 2017, HBO, which once produced "Game of Thrones" and "Sex and the City", and its Asian department cooperated with Taiwan Public Television to launch "Psychic Girl". This drama not only broke the "Sex Heroes" in Taiwan, China, which has remained for 7 years. The ratings record is also the first time that the international platform "eats crabs" to co-produce in a Chinese drama.
However, to be fair, the coverage and influence of the works in "Psychic Girl" are still mediocre, which is the same as HBO in other Asian countries, such as South Korea, Japan, Thailand, Indonesia and other countries. In recent years, HBO has tried to produce native-language drama series in these countries, but unlike the "Quanyou" produced by its base North America channel, which are all popular, HBO's status on Asian channels has always been tepid. fire.
This time "The Distance Between Us and Evil" is very popular, which undoubtedly strengthened the confidence of HBO Channel Asia to continue to produce Chinese drama series . According to news, HBO will continue to launch self-made Chinese drama series such as "Dream Hunter" and "Psychic Girl 2".
At present, HBO is also disseminating content to the audience on Tencent Video. "Quanyou" series, "The Distance Between Us and Evil" and other dramas have achieved considerable ratings on Tencent Video. On the one hand,
makes efforts to produce Chinese-language drama series, on the other hand, it cooperates with the domestic leading platform . HBO's strategy in China has actually taken shape.
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18zF OX brings new possibilities
Shortly after HBO launched "Psychic Girl", there was also an overseas platform that cooperated with Tencent Penguin Pictures to launch a Chinese drama series, namely FOX's "Oriental Wall Street".
is different from Netflix and HBO which use Taiwanese dramas as the entry point to acquire audiences in the Chinese-speaking regions, while "Oriental Wall Street" takes Hong Kong, China as the social background, and gathers actors from the three regions in terms of cast; Like "Psychic Girl", "Wall Street" also adopts the mini-series mode, focusing and highlighting the theme with a compact rhythm, and presenting a kind of "beautiful drama" to the audience. In terms of content, "Oriental Wall Street" has played FOX in The advantages of workplace dramas are in line with reality in terms of financial themes, and they are effectively integrated with theatrical effects, which have attracted many "UK and American drama audiences" and expanded the audience.
Actually, FOX TV content and Chinese audiences have quite a connection.
From the American drama "Prison Break", to "Doctor House", which is regarded as a popular medical science drama by Chinese people, to the classic Internet celebrity "Rice Play" and "Bone Bones"... These FOX's boutique series launched very early Has entered China, and the first domestic audiences began to have a certain understanding of American dramas. In recent years, FOX began to use the American drama model to test the Chinese audiovisual content . After the launch of "Oriental Wall Street", it was broadcast simultaneously in many Asian countries; from the end of 2018 to the beginning of this year, "Injustice" has also been broadcast throughout Asia; In addition to the episodes, FOX also saw the space for the development of Chinese variety shows, and tried to bring the dramatic style to the East-West cooking competition show "Famous Chefs" in cooperation with Tencent Video.
Obviously, FOX is constantly gathering forces from all parties, co-producing audiovisual content , and expanding the Chinese-speaking market.
On the other hand, purchases the Chinese language copyright and conducts global development. is also a "way" for FOX to open the Chinese market. For example, last year, FOX purchased the right to adapt the "Prince Concubine's Promotion" and developed the Korean drama version.
Undoubtedly, "overseas giants" are "fighting" against the Chinese-speaking regions and launching Chinese drama series that meet the aesthetics and characteristics of the Chinese cultural circle. One of the reasons is that they want to expand their business territory and obtain more paying members; but at the same time, This also confirms from another section that the industrial chain and marketization of Chinese film and television content production are maturing, and the influence of the Chinese cultural circle is gradually expanding . In the future, we may see more and more international platforms join. To layoutThe ranks of Chinese drama series.
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